Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

A fine Second World War Arctic convoys D.S.C. group of eight awarded to Commander P. G. Satow, Royal Navy, who survived the loss of the destroyer Wild Swan and was also twice mentioned in despatches, once for gallantry in “The Battle of Barents Sea”, the famous action in which the destroyers Orwell and Onslow repelled the mighty Hipper - a V.C. action and classic ‘David and Goliath’ contest that caused an enraged Hitler to order the scrapping of his High Seas Fleet

Distinguished Service Cross, G.VI.R., the reverse officially dated ‘1944’ and privately engraved ‘Patrick Satow, Royal Navy’; 1939-45 Star; Atlantic Star; Africa Star; Burma Star; War Medal 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf; Korea 1950-53 (Lt. Cdr. P. G. Satow, D.S.C., R.N.); U.N. Korea 1950-54, good very fine or better (8) £3000-3500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte.

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D.S.C. London Gazette 1 January 1944.

Patrick Graham Satow, who joined the Royal Navy as a Cadet in May 1937, was appointed a Sub. Lieutenant (and Navigating Officer) in the destroyer H.M.S. Wild Swan on 19 December 1939, the very same day that her crew fell in on the jetty at Portsmouth to greet the King as he made a visit to the dockyard. From that date until the Wild Swan’s loss to enemy aircraft in June 1942, her active wartime commission is vividly recounted by Peter C. Smith’s in his history of the ship, a history in which Satow is often quoted at length.

Employed on 10 May 1940 to take demolition parties to the Hook of Holland, Wild Swan remained there until the 13th, when she returned to Dover. During that time she engaged enemy batteries, parachute troops and carrier borne troops landing on the beaches, and sustained damage from a near miss which reduced her speed to 15 knots, and necessitated her return to dock for repairs. But she was quickly back at sea, and from the 21st to 25th was employed in escorting ships and evacuating refugees and troops at Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne. At the latter port she assisted on the 23 May in the final evacuation in the face of heavy air attack and fire from shore batteries, one of her own guns destroying an enemy tank which was ‘roaring down a side street towards the quay’. Gunnery skills aside, Wild Swan’s survival was also down to the navigation of Satow, Signalman W. K. Harrison recalling in Peter C. Smith’s ship history:

‘One man who gained the respect of the people on our bridge was Sub. Lieutenant Satow, our Navigation Officer. On the backward and forward runs, bringing shiploads of soldiers back, we always seemed to pass close to a particular floating mine. On the way out it would be to starboard and on the way back it would be on the port side. We did not worry during the daylight hours as the lookouts would always spot it in good time, but at night there was some concern that they would not see it and would fail to warn us in time to prevent us hitting it. We always seemed to pass four or five feet from it. The Captain would be sitting on his stool on the bridge in front of the binnacle with his duffle-coat on and he would say, “Satow, we are coming up near that damned mine, are we not?” And Satow would reply, “It’s all right, sir.” Sure enough the lookouts would shout out, “mine on the port bow”, and we would watch it glide by at the usual distance. Why we never gave it a wider berth I’ll never know. Satow was, however, recognised as a very excellent navigator, even though the mine at night always gave the people on the bridge many secret worries.’

Another witness to Satow’s exceptional qualities as Navigating Officer, as Wild Swan subsequently embarked upon convoy escort work, was Surgeon Lieutenant F. H. D. Hutter:

‘I also met Pat Satow, in those days a Sub. Lieutenant. He was the navigator. In the worst weather imaginable, no sun and no star sights possible, he always seemed spot-on. To me it seemed absolute magic. He was always cheerful and the ship’s tensions seemed to bounce off him. Of all the ship’s officers, I can see him now cheering the wardroom up simply by his presence’ (Smith’s Wild Swan refers).

Loss of the “Wild Swan”

On 17 June 1942, however, Satow’s cheerful nature was sorely tested, for, while sailing in support of convoy H.G. 84, Wild Swan was sunk by Ju. 88s in a ferocious action in the Western Approaches - but not before she accounted for six enemy aircraft, an achievement that would propel her into the front pages of the home press. Satow’s account of the action is recounted in Smith’s history:

‘Within a minute or two, of course, we were at full action stations and then the twelve Huns slowly dropped out from the cloud base. As they crossed ahead of us we opened up with our two foremost 4.7s. The first few rounds burst remarkably close, and at least two of the raiders appeared to be hit, and climbed back into the clouds. A minute or two later these two dropped out of the clouds again steering wildly. We held our breath as they collided head-on, each doing about 300 m.p.h. One caught fire and dived vertically on to a Spanish trawler. The whole lot blew up and a shower of pieces went flying through the air. The other dived headlong into the sea, quite close to the burning wreckage of his opposite number. He released his bombs about a hundred feet up - too late - they fell only a few yards away, and he was also blown to pieces. During the early part of this fierce engagement, Wild Swan was steaming at nearly 25 knots, and altering course continuously to try and avoid the bombs which were falling alarmingly close. She had no time to go and look for German airmen in the sea who might have escaped ...

... About this time Wild Swan experienced a very near miss which severely shook her entire hull, and caused extensive damage. As she lost speed, the rudder also jammed and the crippled destroyer was out of control. Her speed through the water had dropped to only walking pace, when the Wild Swan collided with a trawler which became impaled on her bows. The ship soon stopped, and the Spanish crew were hauled aboard ...

... The sixth bomber caught us. He dived down out of the sun at an angle of 50 degrees and, although the starboard pom-pom and Lewis gunner fired through his wings, five bombs hit the water 15 feet from the ship’s side and went off immediately under the keel. All the guns were firing individually as the electrical circuits and supplies were shattered. This quarter of an hour gave us time to rig a jury wireless aerial. One aircraft came in and machine-gunned us. Unfortunately for him the 12-pounder crew - by now all stripped to the waist - scored a direct hit on one of the engines. As he turned away, the forward guns engaged him and he slowly lost height, hitting the water in a sheet of spray. Before the aerial was finished somebody yelled, “Look out, here he comes.” High up above a machine was coming down at full throttle. He was about 2000 feet up and had a long way to go. All the guns’ crews spotted him simultaneously and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much stuff going up into one machine. He turned his cannon on us and let go four 500lb. bombs. They fell a few feet from our starboard quarter. Although the Lewis and Bren gunners could see this lot coming straight for us, they kept up a hail of fire right till the bombs exploded. There was a rending of steel plates as the old ship broke her back. The flooding of the engine room was completed, depth charges thrown into the air and the 12-pounder lifted clean off its mounting ... ’

With the order to “Abandon ship” given, Wild Swan’s survivors took to the water, some reaching Carley floats, others the ship’s whaler and motorboat, and a Merchant Navy pattern raft which had been recovered at sea at an earlier date. A long night ensued, during which Satow recalled ‘thoughts were mainly centred on the chances of being found the next day’ - and 30 men died of exposure. Salvation finally arrived in the form of the destroyer Vansittart, which was directed to the survivors by an R.A.F. Sunderland.

The battle of Barents Sea - V.C. action

Next appointed to the destroyer Orwell, Satow would witness extensive service on the Arctic-run until early 1944, a highly hazardous and thankless task well documented in G. G. Connell’s history of the 17th Destroyer Flotilla, Arctic Destroyers, in which the Orwell receives frequent mention. Her part, too, in convoy J.W. 51B and the Battle of Barents Sea, which receives yet greater coverage in Dudley Pope’s 73 North. One of six escorting destroyers to become embroiled in the battle, versus the pocket battleship Lutzow and the heavy cruiser Hipper (each with a three-strong destroyer escort), Orwell played a memorable part in driving off the latter’s attack from the north of the convoy, when she went into action alongside her flotilla leader, the Onslow (Captain R. St. V. Sherbrooke, D.S.O.). To begin with the enemy heavy cruiser was reluctant to close, fearful of a torpedo strike 73 North due to Sherbrooke making a clever dummy turn, but inevitably, as described in , Admiral Kummetz, aboard the Hipper, regained his nerve:

‘Kummetz realized he had been outmanoeuvred by Sherbrooke in his first attack on the convoy and prepared for the second. He turned the Hipper eastwards at 0957 on to a course parallel to the Onslow and Orwell and opened fire with all four turrets. However, both destroyers fired back vigorously and three minutes later the Hipper altered away to the obscurity of the north-east.

All the time Kummetz was being driven farther away from the convoy, and although this meant that because of the bad light and the shortcomings of the radar it was out of effective range of his guns, it would perhaps give the Lutzow a better chance when she attacked from the south. Then he saw the enemy had followed round boldly - almost impertinently - on his starboard quarter, carefully keeping between him and the merchantmen.

Four minutes later, at 1004, he decided to make his third sally and this time the Hipper came round to the south-east to a course converging on the Onslow and Orwell. For four minutes she steamed along, her 8-inch guns blazing away. But although the two British destroyers weaved to dodge the shells, they still stubbornly steered in an easterly direction, effectively cutting Kummetz off from the convoy.

Once again, at 1008, he took the Hipper away to the north-east and ceased firing, as if to regain his breath. Then at 1013 he decided to make a fourth attack and turned the Hipper to the south-east to bring all her eight 8-inch guns and as many of the 4.1-inch anti-aircraft guns as possible to bear on the two destroyers and overwhelm them. At the same time he signalled to his force: “Hipper to the north of the convoy and there are four enemy destroyers between us and the convoy.”

This was an ambiguous signal because the Onslow and Orwell were the only two ships then fighting him off. The Obedient and Obdurate were steaming down towards the convoy, and the Achates, already badly hit, was still faithfully laying smoke.

Kummetz’s own three destroyers now formed up astern of the Hipper, which was increasing speed and firing fast at the Onslow and Orwell. They in turn were steaming along just forward of her beam. It was an unequal contest and, since the Hipper’s gunners would soon get the Onslow’s range, it could surely have only one outcome.

The Hipper’s eight 8-inch guns fired a broadside weighing more than 2000 lb., and the six 4.1-inch anti-aircraft guns added another 200 lb. In reply the Onslow’s two guns (two were still frozen up) fired a 96 lb. reply and the Orwell’s four 4-inch guns a 124 lb. broadside. A total of more than 2200 lb. versus 220 lb. Thus the Hipper had the advantage of being able to fire nearly a ton more of high explosives and in addition she knew the guns of the Onslow and Orwell could do her little harm ... ’

What followed led to the award of the Victoria Cross to Sherbrooke of the Onslow, for it was to his command that the Hipper first turned her attention, again and again ominous red glows rippling along the enemy cruiser’s side as she fired her 8-inch guns - several found their mark, turning the little destroyer into a mass of flames forward, but Sherbrooke remained very much in command on the bridge, despite being grievously wounded by a shell splinter - his left eye was hanging down his face. 73 North continues:

‘From astern Austen, in the Orwell, had seen the salvos falling near the Onslow; then the flash of a hit on the funnel was followed by the two hits forward and the whole ship dissolved into a cloud of smoke and steam which streamed aft from a pulsating nucleus of fire. He thought she was going to blow up and immediately came round to port to keep clear.

A few moments later he saw her alter away to starboard. Immediately the Hipper’s gunners switched target and her 8-inch salvos started falling with deadly monotony round the Orwell. Austen ordered her to make smoke to help screen the Onslow.

At the same time he had only a few seconds in which to decide the next move. With the Onslow out of action he was now the Hipper’s main target and the only ship effectively placed to fight her off from the convoy.

Should he try to make a solo torpedo attack on her - an attack probably doomed to fail because of the Hipper’s tremendous gun power, and which would almost certainly mean the destruction of his ship? Or would it be better to turn away and cover the stricken Onslow? That would leave the Hipper open to come down to the convoy.

It was an awful decision to have to make, and could mean the sentence of death for his whole crew.

Then as he watched, he saw the Hipper’s dim silhouette changing and at the same time the shells stop falling round: the Germans themselves had saved him making the decision, for the Hipper was turning away, retiring to the east into the dark anonymity of a convenient snow squall. Thankfully Austen turned the Orwell back to cover the burning ship ... ’

Due to the hesitation of the Lutzow to take advantage of these events from the south, it transpired that the convoy had been saved. Satow, described by Pope as being ‘6ft. 4in. tall and with an almost encyclopaedic memory’, was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 18 May 1943 refers), the recommendation citing his ‘exemplary conduct in action’. And in January 1944, following further adventures on the Arctic-run, he was gazetted for his D.S.C.

Transferring to the destroyer Myngs in early 1944, Satow next moved, in July of that year, to the Kempenfeldt, another destroyer in which he served in the Pacific, the latter work winning him a second “mention” (London Gazette 11 June 1946 refers).

Post-war, Satow was advanced to Lieutenant-Commander in February 1949 and served as a navigation specialist in the aircraft carrier Glory in the Korea War 1952-53, following which one of his final appointments was at N.A.T.O. prior to his retirement in the rank of Commander in 1957.